In the Ether
by ResolutionFromDespair
Summary: Castiel, in death -there is no Heaven for angels. Tag set from 5.18 to 5.21.


_a/n: _title taken from a song by the Who; as a disclaimer, I don't own Supernatural. Also posted on lj under lies-unfurl. Concrit is love._  
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* * *

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Death is flying and burning and glory and Grace, and for a moment Castiel understands why it can only be felt once. For a single, shining second he feels his true self stretch beyond the limitations of Jimmy Novak's body; touches stars and newly fertile worlds; sees a snapshot of this universe and all the ones beyond it as they are for this small, insignificant beat of Time's heart, and then he simultaneously feels his vessel collapse somewhere below and a force that unceremoniously tears him away, taking his conscience to somewhere that neither man's footsteps nor angel's wings can ever get to, leaving thin tendrils of his essence still chained to a man who used to have a wife and a daughter, and who used to be alive of his own will.

* * *

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, where'd he come from?"

"Looked like he just fell from the sky –oh, fuck; he's bleedin' pretty badly."

"Course he is; you try dropping from –from –hell, I don't know. Try fallin' from some airplane to a boat in the middle of nowhere and see how nice you look."

"Yeah, well, radio out and hope that somebody knows where nowhere is, 'cause a dead man on my ship's not something I'm gonna have. Mike, help me get his shirt off; looks like there some sort of-"

"Christ, what's that on his chest?"

* * *

He is, in death, everything that he was not in the final days of his life, full of Grace, and strong, and faithful.

But he knows as he moves through the ether places that are between and beyond the lands that he walked on in life that this isn't real. The infinite, lifeless expanse and the oddly immeasurable time that goes with it are, at best, illusions.

There is no Heaven for angels.

* * *

"What're you gonna do with him?"

"Standard procedures for an injured seaman. He'll be taken by 'copter to the mainland to be treated. Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to identify him-"

"I can't. He isn't one of my crew. I've never seen him before in my life."

"He was a stowaway?"

"No. He wasn't on the ship at all. He just… crashed onto it, from out of the sky. Like an angel falling, you know?"

* * *

Castiel has been in the silent place just long enough for him to start separating it into the past and the present instead of a single, vast now, when memories start to flicker through his mind. He had spent enough time on Earth to know that they are not what any mentally stable Human would consider to be happy, but they distract him from the emptiness all the same, and when he sees what he left behind, he finds himself glad to be here instead of there, because otherwise he might need to face

(MichaelDean; LuciferSam)

how little faith he has left in anything.

* * *

"-and beyond that, there are the lacerations on his chest. They should have been easy to treat, compared to everything else, but hey, when's anything ever simple around here?"

"When do I ever have time to answer questions you already know?"

"Sorry, Doctor. Um, we don't know the details of how they were caused –nothing beyond that they were inflicted before he landed on the boat, if that's what really happened—but they were infected by the time he came in."

"Get to his overall condition. Unless something big that I don't know about has changed, an infection's going to be the least of his worries."

"Nope. I mean, no, Doctor Hames. Nothing big."

"And no success identifying him?"

"No, Doctor. There are people on it now, a team that the police sent over, but they haven't turned anything up yet. Nobody nearby has reported anyone like him missing. A regular John Doe, I guess."

* * *

When the memories of when there was something beyond himself in existence start to come back, a recollection of physical sensation comes along. Castiel can feel a ghost of a breeze on his face; can dream about what sunshine felt like, both to his vessel (warm and safe; soaking almost every happy memory in his childhood, and in his daughter's) and to him: ultra-violet, burning with neither wrath nor blessing, but simply because that is its nature, and faintly he recalls thinking (or perhaps it was someone else who had this thought and shared it with the world, since all of this feels distant, like something he observed, staring down from Heaven, in the days before free will was an option he would have dared to consider) that this sun is like his Father, giving freely, but almost never interfering with the life that comes from His light.

And he recalls another thought as well, that it would make sense for humans to worship the sun, whose presence can always be felt somewhere on the earth at any given second in all time, while Father is so much more secretive in showing His face.

Certainly, though, that one is not his memory. He would not have dared to ever tarnish Father's name by comparing it to one of His creations; would never have reduced to such simple blasphemy.

But the silence is patient and unyielding, and he knows that a time will come when he cannot lie anymore.

* * *

"Completely unresponsive to the tests, ma'am. From what we can tell, he is, as the saying goes, brain dead."

"As expected. Unfortunate, but given the circumstances, well… it would be unethical of me to say that death is preferable to being in that state, but I can't bring myself to say that our Mr. John Doe is lucky to be alive."

"I know what you mean, Doctor."

* * *

He tries to fall into the memories; tries to relive all of them with a passion that he never felt while alive, and sometimes he succeeds.

He stands in the basement of Bobby Singer's house, except this time he _just _stands, and watches, and listens. This time, Sam Winchester's cries make him feel pained with a desire to go and help him –but that isn't an option, now. He watches himself, fully blessed with Grace, open the door without moving, and then he watches himself disappear, and then he leaves the memory.

* * *

"We're going to have to ask you to put these on –there's a high infection risk, you see."

"We understand completely, Doctor."

"All set? Good. Now, step inside. I know the machines might disrupt your view of him, but-"

"That isn't him, Doctor. I haven't seen my son in a year, but I know that man there; that's _not_ him."

"…I'm sorry."

* * *

When the light first appears, flickering faintly at the edge of his vision, Castiel assumes he's slipping away again. Grateful for the respite from nothing but the unbearably silent grey mist he's been drifting through he stills himself and focuses on whatever forgotten occurrence has just dislodged itself from hiding.

But the memory doesn't come. He is still aware of the endless ether, with no vivid simulation constructed around him, and because there is nothing else, he knows that the light isn't part of a memory. Only in the very beginning did he see such a limited part of his collections of details from his life; even as his Grace slowly depleted on Earth, he noticed all of the insignificant signs that humans never stopped to appreciate or abhor, and all of his recent memories have contained every single one of those unimportant details.

And, just as he knows instinctively that those memories are complete, he knows that he has not regressed to being able to only feel the shadow of a single sense at a time.

He turns toward the light and, for the first time since coming here, arcs his wings and moves with a purpose.

* * *

"No change, Doctor."

* * *

Distance is as skewered as time here, and Castiel doesn't know how long it's been since he began to make his way towards the light when it starts to increase. It grows with a steady, pulsing heartbeat, and soon he can feel heat, as intense as the core of a star, but barely more to him than what the sun was like to Jimmy Novak.

He doesn't pause to consider any alternatives; just embraces it and flies through the softly lit purlieus to whatever secrets are tucked in the center, and like a fool, he never wonders what those secrets might be.

* * *

"Doctor! Get in here, stat!"

"He was fine a second-"

"And now he's not! Clear!"

"The priest is outside. He wants to administer last rights."

"Damn it, he isn't dead yet! Clear!"

"He says that just because he's unidentified-"

"The Father can't save him, but we actually have a chance. Either help me, or get out of my way."

"Sorry, Doctor."

* * *

He flies until he feels something that registers not as pain, but as a sensation warmer than he would consider comfortable. In all of his time serving Heaven, he has faced heat powerful enough to incinerate a human in a millisecond and cold closer to the fabled absolute zero than any scientist has managed to recreate. Discomfort is something he accepts and ignores, and this heat is only a minor one, at that.

Still, something makes him stop, but the light still intensifies, and for a reason Castiel cannot explain, he raises two of his wings and shields his eyes.

"There's nothing more we can do. Call the time of death."

* * *

The light grows, and even with his wings shielding him, Castiel can still see a steady gold reflection, burning

"Your work is not yet done, Castiel," says a voice from all around him, powerful and overwhelming and gentle, almost fatherly. A feather-light breeze, almost like fingers brushing over him (if only anything less than a sword forged in the heat of Heaven's core could touch him in this form) and Castiel feels himself flying with a speed and strength comparable to only that which he felt upon his death.

All of his wings are spread out now, but he can still see a warn golden light as he embraces and allows a whirling tempest to propel him wherever it chooses, and he has only a moment to reflect on the source of the light before-

* * *

"-we have a heartbeat!"

"What are his vital signs? Now!"

"Doctor, he's not just back –he's waking up."

The world is grey and filled with mist and shadows and pain and still Castiel pushes on, because what is there for him to fall back to?

"To put it simply, fine. His chest –it's healed. Not even a scar. I'm not a religious man, Doctor, but this is striking pretty damned close to a miracle."

"Save the prayers for after you've given me his stats –sir? Sir, can you hear me?"

* * *

There is pain and there are questions. Castiel answers the latter, but the first brings along with it one explanation, and it isn't one he wants to face.

(He can no longer stretch his wings.)

* * *

"Legally, we have to release him. His name checks out and his condition is more than stable –he's in better health now than most of us are."

"His explanation doesn't match up –he couldn't have been stowing away on that boat; numerous witnesses say that he _fell_, and the injuries match up. And that still doesn't explain the… whatever that thing was, on his chest."

"That's not our concern."

* * *

It's a day later, and maybe the last day before the world ends (or maybe that will be today) and Castiel sits across from Dean, uncomfortably hot and, more distractingly, Human.

"What was it like?" asks Dean curiously. "After the sigil and the fishing boat and all that, what happened to you?"

"I don't know," he replies truthfully. "I don't remember."


End file.
